Michael Yon has done it again. He snapped this photo of Muslims and Christians placing a cross on the top of a church that is so moving that the only way you can’t see the importance of it is if you have a heart of stone:
A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from “Chosen” Company 2-12 Cavalry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope.
The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. ” Thank you, thank you,” the people were saying. One man said, “Thank you for peace.” Another man, a Muslim, said “All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.” The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers.
Amazing. Instapundit received this email note from Michael where he offered additional details:
I photographed men and women, both Christians and Muslims, placing a cross atop the St. John’s Church in Baghdad. They had taken the cross from storage and a man washed it before carrying it up to the dome.
The Anchoress writes about the photo’s beautiful simplicity:
What I see in this picture is something more than a historic moment – I don’t even know if that’s what we should call it – I see the sort of thing people do when they are neighbors, when they are working together for their neighborhood, for the good of all who live there, and that to me makes it seem less “historic” than calmly, wonderfully normal, ordinary, sane and wholesome. I see tolerance, which so many are so certain cannot exist in Iraq – or anywhere in the Middle East. Tolerance in the best sense of the word – converting no one, insisting on nothing beyond ordinary acceptance; tolerance that gives people room to live their lives.
